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What I Learned From My 9-Hour Group Meeting

The other day, I took part in what I will call The Longest Group Meeting of My Life. It was 9 hours to be precise. It was for my Management of People at Work class (equivalent to BUSMHR 3200).

We had to prepare a 20-minute presentation on a research question that explores an Organizational Behavior topic. We had to come up with a model (how having a family affects an employee’s tendency to work from home and or/ tendency to work overtime and whether the age of kids influence these correlations) and research existing literature to propose hypothetical results. Phew, that was a mouthful!

And here’s what I concluded about SMU students during this 9-hour meeting (we started at noon and stayed until 9 PM in a group study room…)

SMU students pay a lot of attention to detail

It was impossible to move on from one step of the project to the next if the first step was not perfected. I found that the students have a hard time jumping around to different parts of the project. For me, I tend to focus on the end result. For my group mates, they were more interested in specific details. 75% of the time, they would always end the meeting by saying “Let’s ask Prof” (it’s very normal to call professors here by Prof). They were always unsure whether our progress was going in the right direction. Perhaps this could be related to my previous post about creativity in Singapore and how people might feel uncomfortable with the idea of thinking outside of the box.

Polychronic time system is a more relaxed approach to time and scheduling. Cultures who are under a polychromic time system are not stressed out by time because they don’t count minutes. Some Asian, Latin American, and African cultures use the this time system.

On the other hand, Western cultures use the monochromic measure of time meaning time is segmented into precise, small units. Western culture such as America take time very seriously because “time is money”.

During this meeting, I realized that SMU students lean towards the polychromic time system. As the hours passed by, I realized that it was not about getting the job done, it was about getting the job done perfectly no matter how long it took. No one seemed to be anguished that the meeting was taking the whole day. When I was in that group study room, time became irrelevant. The only thing that was relevant was our presentation.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed myself during the meeting

99% of the time, I really dislike group meetings. They can be unproductive, confusing, and just plain stressful. However, there are times when group meetings are productive and engaging. This was one of those meetings. I found that SMU students are very engaged in their group projects, with every member giving it their best effort (which can’t be said for some of my pervious group projects at Fisher…). This makes group projects a lot more bearable. It was even enjoyable because it’s one of the few chances I really have to interact with the local students.

So in the end, it wasn’t as nearly as horrible as it sounds. I learned a lot through observation and I even made some new friends!